Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1887-09-01
IN WILD SIBERIA.
Strange Extremes of Heat and Cold
Peculiarities of The Country.

- CSe11eAAaOo "a thc Nodh1ys
Northeast Siberia possesses climate
colder than the north pole and hotter than
many uplands under the equator; bu. the
torrid heat lasts only for a few weeks,
while the intense cold endures for many
months In the volcanic peninsula of
Kamchatka, says writer in the London
IsIerapk, the banks of the inland streams
are clothed with grass growing with tropi-
cal luxuriance and spangled with gay
fowers-the Alpine rose, the cinquefoll,
and the beautiful Kamchatka lily-while
on the low-lands cluster the popular and
the silver birch. The prevailing humidity
OF the Pacific seaboard, particularly in the
AMOR basin, favors the development of a
splendid vegetation and on the Usuri the
ginseng is largely cultivated for the Chi
nese market, where it fetches its weight in
gold, the plant being esteemed a sovereign
remedy against all disorders.
In Manchuria the tiger reaches his
northernmost limits and meets the Russian
bear, and the Asiatic squirrel Joins paws
with the Siberian ermine and marten. In
West Siberia the birds are exceedingly
numerous, and on the Arkat hills still
browse mountain sheep with enormous
thick and twisted horns over yard long.
On the steppes Craze fat-tailed sheep, rein
deer and camels, and from New Siberia and
the Arctic seaboard has been obtained in
single year as much as forty thousand
pounds weight of fossil ivory from the re-
mains of mamInoths and other antedilu-
Wan animals, which have heen found SO
perfectly preserved in naturally refriger-
ating ice that their freshness might excite
the envy of New Zealand loren mutton
company.
To the ordinary English reader the men
sion of Siberia will, as l. rule, suggest only
one feeling-of horror. Siberia at once
coniures up images of miserable men and
women lacerated by the knout, and their
foreheads branded by the red-hot iron, and
then, laden with letters dispatched on foot
TO Siberia, there to labor for life in the
mines. Until the accession TO the throne
Of the Gar Alexander H., graduated
scale Of penalties in criminal jurisprudence
can scarcely be said to have existed in the
Muscovite empire. The knout and trans
portation to Siberia were alike the punish
ment of the parricide, the fraudulent
bankrupt and the droschky driver who had
been so unfortunate as with his vehicle to
run over and kill a foot passenger. On
the other hand, criminal legislation was
mild even to feebleness. In cases of libel,
If the prosecutor could not prove his case,
he underwent the punishment. which would
have been awarded to the defendant had
he been convicted. The maximum term
of Imprisonment for debt was three months
and noble debtors could not be imprisoned
at all. As regards the horrors of Siberia,
they we're susceptible of some slight miti-
cation.
Political exiles of high rank, or felons
possessed of some pecuniary means, were
occasionally allowed to reside at Tobolsk
| although the temperature there is so low
that the thermometer falls 10 40o Reau-
| mur. kotzebue knew civil functionary
| who enliyened the WEAKNESS OF his wintry
days of leisure by forming with Il penknife
fantastic figures made out of frozen mer-
curry. When the author of The Stranger :"
was an exile at Tobolsk the friendly Rus
sian Governor ordered the whitewashed
walls of the back yard OF the banished
writer's house to be painted by 4 convict,
who had turn for art, with images Of irIit
trees. No real ones will grow in the vicin-
| ity of dreary Tobosk But there are worse
solitudes than Siberia. There are the
mines which are principally situated in
| the Government of Irkutsk there are con-
Wet prisons, where the prisoners who work
at carrying materials are chained TO the
wheelbarrows which they tr,indle; others
are employed in hunting fur-bearing ami
mails or in fuvial navigation.